Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike F
At least Robert Jordan has a strong thread of a central plot running through his bloated epic.
Martin's love of yanking the carpet out had led to his plot becoming a muddled mess of blind alleys and neglected promises.
The series started about a battle to settle the Seven Kingdoms in time to fend off the White Walkers from the north and the Dragon Queen from the east. 5 massive tomes later, the war for the Seven Kingdoms in barely simmering, with Stannis, the only remaining original contender, no threat to anyone, the White Walkers are still bogey men, and Dany shows no signs of stirring to head overseas. The only real threat to progress the central plot is a character Martin essentially pulled out of nowhere, and which I'm betting is nothing more than another false start.
And nothing has replaced the original central thread beyond a whole bunch of individual set pieces that emerge, live for a bit, then vanish, often with another carpet yank, with little tying them together.
I have little faith in Martin pulling this together in two (or even three) more books in any satisfactory way.
Edit: I should add, this wasn't a rant at you, per se. Your post just triggered something that's been bugging me since I finished book 5.
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I feel largely the same way about the books now. I almost just want to re-read books 1-3 and pretend that Dany isn't still mucking about somewhere in the east and events elsewhere haven't dried up.
I don't think it's gotten nearly as bad as The Wheel of Time, but if The Winds of Winter is another bloated, overly long book with little actual progression (and years late!) -- well I don't think it will matter because I have little faith that Martin will properly finish before he dies and the TV show will almost certainly be over before he gets there. He's going to lose all of his thunder that way, but at least the writers of the TV series have to actually get somewhere and have limited budget. They should be able to focus on concluding the main points of the story, and with Martin's oversight I hope it's turns out well.
After this season is concluded there's little from books 4-5 that I particularly want to see brought to life, so I can't even say I'll follow the show that diligently any more. This is actually one area where I hope the writers diverge from the source material and speed things up.